


on our knees, but looking up

by Anniely



Series: sometimes flying, mostly falling [2]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Family, Gen, Hurt/Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-12 22:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2126730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz knew things would fall apart again, she just didn't think it would start quite this soon. And she certainly didn't think that she'd be doing some of the wrecking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. grave calling

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to winthisbattle over at tumblr!
> 
> Takes place a few months after '(you need to choose) which way to fall'.

.

 

They don't meet up often. It's the reason their partnership works so well. In their line of business, any trace, any scrap of evidence that can lead from one to the other, is a risk. And they don't take risks.

 

'Are you sure about this?' the older man asks, righting his tie. He hates how the wind blows between the skyscrapers of DC.

 

'Yes,' is all the other man gives back. He's not a friend of many words.

 

'Then we need to advance our plans. I will set everything in motion.'

 

'You've let him play criminal for far too long. We should kill him and be done with it.' He scratches at a cut on his hand until it starts bleeding.

 

'We are prepared for this kind of situation. I want to know every little thing he knows, first, so we can make sure that the information can be contained. Then you can kill him.'

 

He rights his tie, again, and when he looks back up, he is alone.

 

The two men don't meet up often. But they don't need to. They still get everything they want.

 

.

 

It takes seconds for a life to unravel, yet it might take a lifetime to put the pieces back together. Sometimes it can't be repaired, at all, because a corner piece fell under the couch and you just won't find it there.  
And sometimes you realize halfway through that it's really not worth the time and effort.

 

Liz keeps finding little parts of her life here and there, even after two years, and she picks them up and puts them in her pocket. Sometimes she cuts herself, when she picks them up.

 

Like the one time, just a week after she had told Tom to leave, when she was watching TV and she turned to say something to him. She stared at the wall next to the door where a picture of them on their honeymoon had been, tried to remember Tom's face and wondered whether it was a good or a bad thing that she couldn't.  
Since then, it has become a habit to skip programs Tom liked; she watches mostly news channels, these days.

 

Or that one time Red made a comment on a blacklister's outfit and she caught herself halfway to saying _Tom always says_.

 

She can clean the house listening to Bon Jovi and no one can tell her otherwise. She can clean the house listening to Bon Jovi and no one will look at her over the rims of their glasses and ask _Do you really have to listen to this?_ and it makes her sad, some days.

 

Liz keeps finding little pieces of herself. Some she decides to keep, some she throws out.

 

.

 

When Red gets the phone call, he knows something is wrong. He doesn't own a phone. There's just the satellite phone Dembe insists on carrying around and only three people in the world even have that number, which Dembe keeps changing. None of them is likely to call him at 5:30 in the morning.

Besides, they wouldn't go through the trouble of sending a phone with the post to the hotel he's currently staying at.

 

It's hard to surprise the Concierge of Crime, but every now and again, someone challenges his talent for improvisation at 5:30 in the morning, after two glasses of Scotch. Although alcohol has long lost its ability to intoxicate him. Red has been drugged and poisoned so many times, even morphine is starting to lose its effect on him, which is rather annoying, considering how often he has had a tracking device implanted and removed during the last two and a half years.

There's still ringing coming from inside the package.

 

Red rips open the package in one movement and it sounds like the snapping of twigs. He shakes out a burner phone.

 

'Yes?'

 

.

 

On a bad day, Red forgets who he is. He has played many roles over the years and some of them have wound themselves around him so tightly, it's hard to separate himself from them.

There are days when he shoots a man in the face or pushes another one off a building and doesn't feel a thing, except the recoil of the gun, or the breeze on this face as he looks down twenty stories.  
He can stab a man in the neck and knows he's supposed to feel something, but when the word regret sounds hollow in his ears.

Liz once accused him of being a monster and on a bad day Red believes her. On a bad day, he forgets that he has saved lives. That he used to be able to discern between good and bad. That there used to be a line and different sides and not just him in the middle, desperately trying to survive and keep the few people he allows himself to care about alive, too.

On a bad day, he believes Lizzy when she calls him a monster and forgets that he was once someone's hero and that he will always be a father.

 

.

 

When Red ends the call, his face is stormy, but his hands are steady as he takes the phone apart and crushes the pieces under the heel of his shoe. He takes the pieces and dumps them in the toilet, watches them being flushed away.  
He always knew this would happen, but he had hoped he would have more time. It's the constant mantra of a man on death row, he supposes: More time, just a little more time. Even though the outcome is always going to be the same.

 

Red allows himself five seconds to breathe in and out. Then he calls for Dembe.

 

'We need to leave, my friend.'

 

.

 

When he runs out of gas on Christmas, 1990, Raymond Reddington runs home. He's thirty years old and he has never been more scared in his life.

 

Usually, he can run for miles without feeling a strain, but today he can feel his muscles aching. He isn't running laps on the base. His military training, ingrained in every fiber of his being, is trying to calm his breathing and give his aching lungs a break, but this isn't his morning run through the still empty streets of his idyllic neighborhood.

 

He is running for the lives of his wife and daughter.

 

.

 

It starts like it usually does: With the ringing of her phone and _Nick's Pizza_ on the display. She has yet to ask him who Nick is and if his pizza is worth the additional advertising.

There's a small smile on her face when she takes the call.

 

'Red.'

 

'Lizzy,' he says and it's so much more than her name: Some days it's _Good Morning_ and _How are you?_ or _I'm glad you picked up_. It took her a while to be able to pick up on the tiny different nuances in his voice and even longer to be able to identify them.

 

Today, there's something in his voice she can't quite place and it makes her stop, her lipstick hovering in the air halfway between the mirror and her lips.

 

'I have another number for you. I will meet you at the black site for the details.'

 

'Red –'

 

'Later, Lizzy,' he interrupts her gently. 'Later.'

 

The call ends and Liz is left staring at herself in the mirror. She looks down at the lipstick that's still in her hand and thinks that blood red might not be the right color for today.

 

.

 

It took a while for Red to set foot in the post office again. It's one of the few signs she has ever seen that show her that he is more than just comments on her wardrobe and careless half-smiles and, sometimes, just as careless acts of violence.

He used to be a black spot in her mind, just the words dangerous and criminal. Liz hasn't yet figured out what he is to her now, but she would never call him a monster again. She couldn't stand to see the hurt in his eyes.  
She wonders, though, whether caring about someone who might still be a monster makes her a monster, too.

 

She passes the security checkpoints easily and walks past heavily armed guards to the elevator.  
Both the checkpoints and the guards have been doubled since Garrick's attack on the site, but the post office isn't impenetrable anymore; it has become a mouse trap in Liz' mind. A place where people can be kept in just as easily as they can be kept out.

The doors of the elevator close and it takes her into the heart of the black site.

 

.

 

Red arrives like he always does: dressed in the most inconspicuous armor, his eyes shielded from the world by a pair of sunglasses.

Liz can feel the exact moment he steps out of the elevator, his presence filling the room. It always makes her feel like she's underwater; that moment when you can feel the last breath leaving your lungs, but you can already see the light and you know you're going to reach the surface before you run out of air. It's like being suspended in midair and sometimes it scares her, to feel this safe with Red.

He comes to stand next to her desk and rests his hand on the edge. It might be the almost nervous tapping of his index finger, or the way he is standing just a little straighter or the way Dembe is standing just a little closer than normally. Liz doesn't know why, but she puts her hand next to his so they are just barely touching. She doesn't know if he wants her comfort, but she wants to give it to him, anyway.

Red doesn't say anything, but she can hear him breath out. And he takes his glasses off.

 

.

 

'Kassim Alhiree. Born and raised in Sudan. He first showed up on our radar in 1997, when a bomb that was later traced back to a group he was working for exploded in an army research laboratory, killing three soldiers and two civilians.'

 

'Harold, sometimes I wonder why your intelligence agencies spend such tremendous effort and funds on collecting wrong information,' Red interrupts Meera, who doesn't even blink, but simply steps aside to let Red take her place at the front of the room.

 

'Kassim Alhiree was born in the United States in 1970. After his father's death, his mother moved back to Sudan. He graduated from the University of Khartoum in 1992, with a degree in civil engineering. He was involved in a few smaller attacks prior to '97, like the gas attack on the University of Milwaukee in '95, or the car bomb that killed the Israeli ambassador in Rome in '96. And your picture is extremely outdated, as well. '

 

'Who does he work for?' Ressler asks.

 

'Whoever can pay him. If you had the funds, tomorrow he would be working for you. But that kind of money isn't at your disposal, Donald.'

 

'Who is he working for right now?' Liz asks and Red turns to look at her. He always does.

 

'A Bolivian called Pedro Marullo. He very recently acquired Kassim's services. Which brings me to the next point,' Red says, donning his fedora and glasses. 'I'll be borrowing Lizzy to meet a contact of mine. Afterward, we'll hopefully know what Kassim is being paid for.'

 

'Hopefully?' Cooper asks, speaking up for the first time. He realized early on that trying to have a somewhat serious conversation, let alone a discussion, with Reddington was only going to give him a headache.

 

'Have a little faith, Harold.'

 

'Maybe later,' the agent says quietly and watches the two leave.

 

There are times when he catches himself thinking of them as two sides of a coin, the light and the dark. And there are times when it's hard to tell who is which.

 

.

 

There's a small Italian restaurant, close to a park, squeezed in between a brand new Starbucks and a polished Louis Vuitton store. It seems like it's holding its breath to not be squashed by the overbearing stores at its side.  
It has been quietly sitting here for a little over ten years. Most people tend to overlook it, with its slightly dirty windows and lights which seem dim compared to the big neon signs.  
But inside it's warm and it smells like coffee and pasta with tomato sauce.

 

They are greeted by a bear of a man with a long black ponytail and a booming voice that makes the empty wine bottles stacked in a cupboard along the wall rattle. He embraces Red in a bone-crushing hug, like a long-lost son.

 

'Angelo.' Red pats the man on the back and turns to Liz. 'Lizzy, this is Angelo. Angelo, this is Elizabeth.'

 

It's the first time he has ever called her Elizabeth.

 

And it's a strange thing, the way names seem to change their meaning depending on who utters them. Sam never called her Elizabeth, not even when he was angry at her; Tom only called her Elizabeth when they were having an argument and he very obviously thought that she was wrong.

Red says her name like it is something small and precious and most likely easily breakable. She wonders what it means, when someone says your name like that.

 

Angelo shakes her hand and leads them to a small table in the back set for three. She thinks that Dembe might join them, but he sits down in a corner, his eyes on the door. His is another story she has yet to figure out.

 

Red orders in what sounds to Liz like perfect Italian and Angelo disappears through a swing door.

 

.

 

The door swings open, a tiny bell indicating the arrival of another guest. A woman, dressed in the clothes of a forgettable office worker, steps into the restaurant and takes off her black felt hat.  
She moves with the heavy grace of a predator. If not her appearance, the way she walks betrays that she is not as innocuous as she might seem. Liz' hand goes to her weapon involuntarily; working with Red has given her a much better sense of who not to underestimate. And this woman has an air about her which makes her seem like fire, fascinating, but dangerous. But Red stops her with just the short touch of warm fingers on her wrist.

 

'She's the information.'

 

They look at each other for a moment, before Liz nods her consent and takes her hand off her weapon.

 

'I'm very grateful for you not shooting me. I doubt Angelo would appreciate blood stains on his mother's tablecloths,' the woman says, as she walks the last few steps to their table.

 

Red gets up to kiss her on the cheeks, but he's not quite as effusive as he is with his other contacts. There's no overly happy, usually fake smile, or too-short hug. And the kiss seems more subdued and somehow that makes it more intimate.

It's like Liz can see the history between the two, like spiderwebs growing from one to the other, binding them together.

 

'Ray. I missed you.'

 

.

 

He's holding a lecture on the history of American aerial defense, when a young secretary sticks her head into the classroom.

_Sir?_

He leaves the class with a few hurried instructions and is on his way to the hospital not two minutes later.

He has never been a man to panic easily, but he is as close to it as he can get. Raymond Reddington is going to be a father. Why did no one prepare him for this at the academy?

 

He gets to the hospital in record time and runs up the stairs into his wife's room. She smiles at him and it makes him fall in love all over again. She is calm, when she takes his hand and reminds him to breathe.

_Shouldn't I be the one to tell you that?_ he asks and the doctor and his wife laugh.

_The mothers tend to be calmer about all of this_ the doctor says.

 

Forty minutes later, he is holding his tiny daughter in his arms. His wife looks at the two of them and smiles her gentle smile, like she always does.

 

.

 

Red introduces her as Tommy and Liz knows better than to ask whether that's her real name.

 

'It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Agent Keen. I've heard a lot about you,' Tommy says. She looks at Red accusingly. 'Chatter's been picking up recently. Something big is coming. Or rather someone.'

 

'Yes, indeed. But let's indulge in some of Angelo's delicious cuisine first. Business will keep, but pasta doesn't.'

 

'Chatter about Alhiree?' Liz asks, before Red can completely drop the conversation. She has the distinct feeling that there is a completely different conversation going on here and she doesn't have the key to decode it.

 

Red looks at her, a crease between his eyebrows, almost like he's contemplating how much she can be bent without breaking.

Then he nods once.

 

'Him, too. But, there's never much chatter about Kassim; if there was, he wouldn't be doing a very good job,' Tommy says. 'However, you can't work with the FBI without making enemies in our circles, Agent Keen.'

 

Even though Tommy is talking, Liz is looking at Red.

 

'Are you in danger?' she asks.

 

She has always taken his confidence as proof that he was untouchable. Then again, she had taken her husband's confessions as proof that he loved her.

 

'You need to focus on Kassim,' Red says. He doesn't answer her question, but really, that's all the answer she needs. 'And I will focus on keeping you safe. I know it's a lot to ask, but I need you to trust me.'

 

'I do,' she gives back truthfully, but her voice breaks. 'I just wish you'd trust me, too.'


	2. when things explode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> your skull froze little lives/ in shadows where you hide/ a life that was designed/ you've been cheated oh so blind

.

 

There are moments when Red forgets how it feels to have someone care about you, in whatever capacity.

 

Like when Dembe is standing in the kitchen of the apartment they will only be occupying for a day and makes coffee. Red always stops at the door.

He's still taken aback when he finds Dembe in the kitchen in the morning and he turns to him, hands him a perfect cup of coffee and says _Good morning, my friend_.

Like when Mr Kaplan, who never allows him to call her Rosie, sends him a Christmas gift. A dusky pink card accompanies the box. _Merry Christmas, Raymond_ , it says and there's a wonderfully soft coat made from vicuña wool in a box wrapped in green wrapping paper.

 

Like that moment, when Liz looks at him and he knows he has her trust, even though he doesn't deserve it.

 

Red never stopped caring about people, but he forgets how it feels to have someone care about you.

 

.

 

'Lizzy, there are things I don't talk about,' Red says quietly, 'Regardless of who I am talking to. I don't keep things from you because I don't trust you. I keep them from you for a much more selfish reason: Because talking about them would hurt me.'

 

Liz can see the truth in the way he's flexing his jaw, like there are still words on this tongue, wanting to get out, but he doesn't let them. She can see the truth in the way he sits, ready to run any second, like there is the possibility that she would send him away.

 

She wants to take back the pain in his eyes, but she knows that she didn't put all of it there. She doesn't even understand most of his pain.

 

'Okay,' she says instead. It's inadequate, but it's the best she can do. 'Okay. Just don't try to protect me at the cost of your own life. I couldn't live with that.'

 

Liz is glad that Angelo chooses this moment to come back with plates of steaming food and Red turns the conversation back to meaningless topics.

 

Otherwise she might have added that she also wouldn't _want_ to live without him.

 

.

 

People used to underestimate him. All they saw was a scrawny kid with a leather jacket two sizes too big and always-moving hands. Working for a drug dealer wasn't a glorious business, nor did it make him rich. They used to think he was simple, too.

 

It suited him well, back then, because the moment they turned around he had his knife out and they didn't even have time to be surprised before he cut their throat and made them bleed all over the stinking alleyway.

 

Now, no one would dare to underestimate him. His leather jacket fits him perfectly and he doesn't have to get his own hands dirty, anymore. There are enough people who will kill for him without hesitation or questions. But this one is personal.

 

He stares down at the grainy, black and white photography of Raymond Reddington and almost grins. He can almost taste the sweet satisfaction of killing that man on his tongue.

 

No one steals from him and gets away with it.

 

.

 

'What do you have on Kassim?' Red finally broaches the subject which brought them here, after he has downed his espresso and Liz is done nibbling tiny amaretti.

 

Working with Raymond Reddington has a few serious drawbacks: she got a very unconventional divorce; her working hours have gone through the roof; on a good day she and her colleagues only get shot at once; and she stopped wearing that lovely olive blouse she bought with her first paycheck.

 

But when it comes to food his choices are beyond reproach and Angelo's pasta was no exception.

 

'He will be at the annual labor union charity event tomorrow night,' Tommy says. She's spooning up the milk froth on her cappuccino like ice-cream.

 

'What kind of charity event is that?' Liz asks and sits up straighter.

 

The food and the Red and Tommy's voices have lulled her into a comfortable feeling of half-awareness, that place where the ceiling could cave in and she wouldn't even bat an eyelash. But the mention of Kassim's name has her back on full alert. Now that she thinks of it, that's another drawback about working with Red. Talk about terrorists and an enjoyable time lie a bit too close together, for her liking. Just once, she wants to go out for dinner with him and never talk about anything more dangerous than Hudson when he is hungry.

 

'It's just a front. It's really more of a criminal class reunion slash job exchange. To see who's selling what, who got killed, that sort of thing.'

 

'Sounds nice,' Liz gives back and Red smiles. 'Will he be there to sell or buy?'

 

'Kassim doesn't buy, he only sells. And if he is already selling his services, whatever he has been paid for by our Bolivian friend could go down any minute.'

 

'Is he planning a terror attack on US soil?'

 

'He's not a terrorist, Agent Keen, he's a business man. However, terror does sell best. And there are going to be quite a few high-value targets at that event that could be of interest to Pedro Marullo.'

 

'What does that mean for us? Liz asks.

 

She looks from Red to Tommy.

 

'That we'll get to dress up,' Tommy says and grins.

 

.

 

Later, they are in a small safe house, one of hers.

 

Red is sitting on a dark leather couch, skimming through a stack of documents. An official seal is peeking out from under his thumb.

 

'He got here two days ago, but he's been lying low. We need more information on the people and resources he has here. But I can't get that kind of information without giving back something and I won't be able to do that without stirring up dust,' Tommy says. She's seated on the windowsill, legs drawn up to her chest, looking out across the city which seems to have been dipped in neon light, a cheap substitute for the stars.

 

'What do you have in mind?' Red asks. He puts the papers aside, a not quite grim but rather stubborn look on his face.

 

'Something the FBI wouldn't like if they found out.'

 

Red makes a dismissing gesture. 'We're not in a position where we have the luxury of being able to care about the FBI's feelings.'

 

'Your Elizabeth isn't going to like it, either.'

 

'What do you have in mind?' Red asks again.

 

'I'm going to stir up dust.'

 

.

 

She's lost in thought, playing with her necklace absentmindedly. There are two dresses laid out on the bed and Hudson is occupying the side that used to be Tom's. Liz has tried, but she couldn't bring herself to sleep there and it seemed like her dog had picked up on her discomfort, because as soon as she had put away the second pillow and blanket, he had made it his sleeping place.

Still, the bed is too large for her. The closet, too. Her house is big and missing life. It feels like an abandoned amusement park. You can imagine the happiness that could once be found there, but all that's left are abandoned rollercoasters and rotting stuffed animals.

 

.

 

Once upon a time, Red used to tell his daughter a story whenever he was home in time to tuck her in. For a while, they seemed to be spending more money on books than on groceries.

 

Her favorite story is called _The Star Money_ , and Red knows it by heart after reading it almost every night for weeks.

 

One day, he buys glow-in-the-dark stars and puts them all over her room. That night, when he comes to the part in the story where the stars rain down from the sky, he says _Look_ and turns off the light.

 

Sometimes, when he's really quiet, he can still hear her delighted laughter.

 

.

 

It's been two months since Tom left. She always phrases it like this in her head, like it was his choice to go. She doesn't know why she does it; after all, she sent him away. But she still finds herself grieving for what she has lost. He might have lied to her, but what he made _her_ feel was genuine, and it hurts to realize that her feelings were of such low value to him.

Liz makes it seem like it was his choice to go. Maybe one day she'll believe it. 

 

 

It's her birthday, two month after Tom left, and she realizes that it will be the first time ever that she'll have no one to celebrate it with. Most of her friends were actually Tom's friends and now that he is gone neither she nor they see any reason to maintain any contact.

She has only colleagues, now, and Red, but it's a Sunday and she can't even to go to work, because even federal agents and criminals want a day off, every now and then.

 

She gets out of bed on her 29th birthday at eight in the morning, just to trudge downstairs and fall asleep again on the couch. Hudson laps at the tears on her cheek, before curling up on the floor.

 

When she wakes up, bleary-eyed and a bit disoriented, the living-room smells like coffee, bacon and sugar.

 

 _Did you take my spare key, or is this still breaking and entering?_ Liz asks.

 

There's only one man who would break into her house and make her breakfast.

 

 _I had a copy of your key made months ago_. His baritone flows in from the kitchen and a second later he is standing there, looking at her. _You should get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in two minutes._

 

By now, she's given up on trying to argue with him, although she's tempted to point out that it's her birthday, so really, if she wants to have breakfast in her pajamas she can. But he's dressed in his typical simple but expensive attire and she would feel strange sitting opposite him wearing a washed-out T-shirt with Snoopy on it.

 

 

It really shouldn't come as a surprise that he can make something as simple as breakfast into a restaurant-worthy meal. The pancakes, eggs and the bacon are perfect and the coffee is the best Liz has ever had.

 

Afterward, he insists on cleaning up, so she's left sitting at the table, watching him move about her kitchen confidently, putting things away like he has done so a hundred times before. He doesn't seem out of place.

 

When he's done, he hands her two boxes. One is small, only a little bigger than a box of matches, the other one is as big as her hand.

 

There's a cupcake in one box and a necklace in the other. A delicate golden necklace with three tiny, golden stars on it.

 

 _Happy Birthday, Lizzy_ he says quietly.

 

She has always loved the stars; the night sky feels like a blanket to her that she can wrap around herself and be safe for a little while.

 

 

It's been two months since Tom left and Liz doesn't feel alone today.

 

.

 

Red and Dembe pick her up in the usual black car, wearing tailored suits and not looking a bit like they are about to walk into a room filled with criminals.

 

Liz doesn't know whether being among those people makes Red nervous; whether he ever makes up worst case scenarios in his head; whether he is scared of dying before he's finished. Because she is not so naive as to believe that he doesn't have an endgame. She knows he stepped out into the open for a reason. (She keeps hoping he won't simply disappear back into the shadows once he has whatever he came to look for.)

 

'Wow,' Red says, when she comes down the stairs. She used to think he was being sarcastic whenever he complimented her. Now, she can feel a faint heat spread across her cheeks as she blushes.

 

'Thank you,' she says and takes his offered hand, even though it's hardly more than two steps to the car.

 

It's something else that startled her at first. How his perfect manners and politeness could lie so close to his utter ruthlessness. He is the perfect enigma. He makes her question every simple truth she has ever believed.

It's not always a good thing, this knowledge lying at the edge of her mind that nothing might actually be what it is.

 

Red gets into the back of the car with her. He is like a statue, calm and composed, looking out the window at the passing scenery; but Liz can feel the nervousness spreading into the tips of her fingers, making them tingle.

 

'Relax, Lizzy. Nothing is going to happen to you,' he says and takes her hands. They fit into his comfortably.

 

She takes a deep breath. This, at least, is a truth she knows she can believe in.

 

.

 

There is fire everywhere, eating its way through books and carpet and a child's toys. The pictures on the walls are burning, too, turning black first and then crumbling to ashes, taking the memories they contain with them. The air is thick with black smoke.

 

A woman is on the floor, her hair pooled around her. In the flickering light of the fire, it is almost impossible to tell the difference between hair and the blood seeping from a deep gash on her temple.

 

A little shadow is huddled close to her mother's lifeless form. One little hand holds on to a stuffed animal rabbit. It is lying dangerously close to a flame which just started climbing up the couch.

 

 _Mommy. Mommy. Mommy_ the little girl is saying, trying to shake her mother awake with her free hand.

 

 _Mommy, please, wake up_ she tries again and has to cough. Tears are running down her cheeks.

 

Finally, finally her mother's eyes open.

 

_Lizzy?_

 

.

 

The street in front of the hotel was almost deserted when they got here. Criminals aren't know for wanting to appear in the morning issue of the newspaper and they can afford to pay off the right people to avoid it.

There wasn't any security to search them, either, or someone to see whether their names were on the guest list. Liz supposes in circles such as these, lists with names are pointless.

 

Now, they step into the vast central hall and it's like walking into a scene out of a beautiful old movie: There's a grand sweeping staircase and a glittering chandelier, shining its light into every last corner. The floor is polished marble and a single man on a piano is playing a mellow jazz tune. A beautifully painted ceiling fresco hangs above them like a tapestry. Even the waiters move with perfectly coordinated precision, their steps like a dance for the pleasure of criminals. And it seems as if every single one of those criminals is competing over who can show off their illegally raked in money best. There are golden necklaces and diamond earrings and expensive watches catching the chandelier's light.

 

It takes Liz' breath away, this splendor. There is beauty even in exorbitant excess.

 

.

 

They've always been going in circles, from the moment they first met. They changed roles a few time, the hunter becoming the hunted. But like any chase, sooner or later someone has to admit defeat, gasping and almost choking, and the winner will grin and take aim. Because there is no draw, when giants go to war.

 

Besides, what good is a list, if you can't reach number one?

 

.

 

Tommy walks towards them, the skirt of her black dress trailing behind her. She hands Liz a glass of champagne, gives Dembe a tiny smile, kisses Red on the cheek and says: 'We're good to go.'

 

Tommy is all fake, gracious smiles and politeness. She greets the people they pass, shakes a few hands and asks after wives and daughters and sometimes dogs. She does all the talking, while Red stands next to her, his hand never straying from Liz' arm, only adding one or the other polite remark, or a rare, barely concealed threat. It's like a dance. A dance through a minefield, while you're wearing a blindfold. These are dangerous people, after all. If you threaten them too much, you might accidentally blow something up; if you don't threaten enough, they will blow you up.

 

As Liz watches, she realizes that Tommy is very much like Red. A gun with its safety off and if you're not careful, you're going to shoot yourself in the leg.

 

It almost makes her miss a step on the marble staircase.

 

.

 

Her forehead's in wrinkles and she counts again.

 

'There are at least five senators here,' Liz says and turns to Red. They have found a small, quiet table with a good view of the hall on the upper level, close to a stone pillar. 'Do they know who these people are?'

 

'Of course they do,' he says, matter-of-factly. 'Some are here despite that fact, and some are here because of it.'

 

'They are drinking champagne with criminals,' Liz says. She knows she is being childish; politicians are people and people can be corrupted, especially by money, but she wanted to believe that the people she put her faith in were worth her trust. It's another truth gone.

 

'Sometimes the only difference between a criminal and a politician is the design of the posters their faces are on,' Red gives back softly.

 

Liz takes comfort in the tingling of the champagne against her tongue. It's another truth gone.

 

.

 

Liz been standing at attention the whole evening, expecting something bad to happen the second she relaxes. But the evening is dragging on, and between the music and her third glass of champagne she's about ready to fall asleep.

 

'Do you think Kassim will still turn up?' she asks, after what feels like hours.

 

'Oh, he's the man at the piano,' Red says. 'Isn't he wonderful? Such a talented man.'

 

Liz is quiet and then she feels the anger bubble up inside of her, hot and stored in a dark corner of her mind for far too long. The words she wants to hurl at Red like stones elude her. Like tiny snowflakes on skin that melt away before she can look at them.

 

.

 

Liz didn't know the world was made from glass, but apparently it is, because it is breaking apart into a thousand burning pieces.

 

She thinks she might be screaming.

 


	3. pain is a matter of sensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in my mind/ i have shot you and stabbed you through your heart/ i just didn't understand/ the ricochet is the second part

.

 

The smoke is burning her lungs and her head feels heavy. It's hard to get her eyes to focus. Her daughter's tiny hand is trembling in hers. She tries to blink the darkness at the edge of her vision away. Just a little further, just a few steps more.

 

But the door is locked.

 

She almost gives up, right then and there, and waits for the flames to eat her whole. She is tired and hurting. Her daughter is pressing against her leg, trying to hide from the heat and the end it will bring if it reaches them. She doesn't know death, yet, but she understands endings and pain.

 

_Mommy, I'm scared_ she says and coughs.

 

Her throat is sandpaper and her tongue ash. She picks her daughter up, feeling her tiny bird bones in her arms. Her hair tickles her nose.

 

_Just a second_ she tells herself, as she hugs her daughter close, _Just one second._

 

.

 

The world comes back into focus slowly.

 

The splendor from before is gone; the music has stopped. Instead cries and pained screams fill the hall and the light from the chandelier has been replaced by the red flickering of fire.

 

.

 

She sees herself walk down the remnants of the staircase, wedged in between Tommy and Red, the color of her dress hidden under a layer of soot. Dembe is leading the way, a gun half-concealed in his hand. She wonders why she's so pale, and why she isn't hurt.

 

.

 

There is a hazy memory of Tommy and Dembe shielding Red and her from the blast; of a shard of glass stuck in Tommy's back like the jagged remnant of a ripped-out wing and a falling piece of ceiling fresco leaving a bloody line along Dembe's face.

 

She might be dreaming.

 

.

 

She sees herself getting into the back of a car with Red. The moment the door closes, Tommy is gone, but Liz doesn't notice. She is trying to fight down the feeling of panic that is eating it's way into her head. She is clenching her fists so hard, her arms are shaking with the strain of it.

 

All she can see is the explosion, and people reaching out into the air, screaming for help and a woman being eaten alive by fire.

 

.

 

Every now and then, she feels like she's losing her mind. Like the world is moving away from her, while she is left standing in the middle of an ocean, forced to watch it all float away.

 

 

She's on the floor, scrubbing at her husband's blood. But she doesn't wash the blood away, she just flushes out lies.

 

 

He is looking at her like he knows her, like he has known her longer than she has. He gives her those tiny bits of information about herself, just enough to not let her starve, and she has to realize that she knows nothing about herself.

 

 

She's wearing a soot-stained gown in the back of an expensive car next to a wanted criminal and somewhere her anger is stretching its claws, the sharp edges tearing at the foggy stupor in her head.

 

 

_He's the man at the piano_ , she hears and she knows she's been lied to again.

 

.

 

The city rushes past them, as Dembe weaves between cars, changing lines every other second. In the background, through the rushing sound of blood in her ears, Liz can hear the sirens wailing. They are always the first to grief.

 

She thinks she tells Red she is alright, at some point, but it's more a reflex than actual truth.

 

.

 

The elevator they are in is going up and up, but Liz would rather stay on the ground; the higher up you are, the longer the fall. But she isn't going to fall, not this time. She'll grow wings, if she has to.

 

.

 

It's her second week at the academy and her instructor is shouting at her. She's going too fast, breaking away from the group. They're supposed to stay together, to take the obstacles as a team, but all Liz can hear is the blood pounding in her ears and the wind rushing past her. She can do this. She'll prove she can do it on her own. She'll run her feet bloody, if she has to.

 

 

_Lizzy, I can help you, if you want. You don't have to do it all alone_ Sam says, as she hits her finger for the fifth time, trying to build her own tree house.

 

_I know_ she says, but this will be hers alone. She'll sit here all night, if she has to.

 

 

Tom is looking at her with pity and impatience. _I don't know why you won't let me help._

 

Liz is looking through her dead father's things and doesn't answer. She's biting her lip, trying to keep from screaming. She'll bite off her tongue, rather than cry, if she has to.

 

.

 

It's a nice suite. Big and full of gold and light, with just the right amount of pomp. Dembe moves to take the jacket from her; Liz hadn't even realized she was wearing one. Red is saying something about drinks and staying the night. He is sitting on the couch, his own jacket next to him.

 

_He's the man at the piano._

 

She knows there's a choice to be made here and for once it's hers and hers alone.

 

.

 

It's easier than she expected, to take the gun from Dembe. Then again, they're both surprised by what she does. It's like her body decided to move before she could even form the appropriate thought and she just goes along with it: Twist the wrist just enough to force Dembe to let go of the gun; elbow up, aim for the nose. She can feel the bones move under her elbow and there's a warm trickle running down her forearm. She'll be sorry later, that he was hurt in the wake of her anger.

 

She pushes Dembe back with her free hand and aims the gun at Reddington, who is looking at her calmly, like he is watching a cat sharpen its claws – they can tear apart a mouse, but they won't harm him.

 

Liz has never been this close to hating anyone. It feels like heartburn. And it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

 

She takes a step forward and presses the muzzle to his forehead.

 

.

 

When you're at the firing range, pulling the trigger is easy. It's a paper target and you get points for accuracy; whoever has the most points at the end of the month gets to skip out on the 10-mile run.

 

When you're being shot at, firing back is easy. There's not even time to think _It's them or me_. Your body wants to survive; your mind wants to survive.

 

But when you're standing right in front of someone and all the power and decisions lie with you, it's different. There's not just a person there; it's like a whole life is spread out in front of you, like a carpet and a tiny spasm of your finger will pull loose a threat and unravel it.

 

.

 

Here, in this expensive hotel suite, in a ruined dress and the echo of the explosion still in her ears, killing seems like shooting paper targets again. It's just the pulling of a trigger which hardly offers any resistance.

She can almost see it, the way his head would fall back and his body would crumble; the pattern of blood on the couch; how the carpet would come undone.

 

But she knows there is no salvation to be found in killing, no satisfaction in revenge. It's like eating cotton-wool. It fills you up, but inside you're still hollow.

 

Red doesn't flinch, doesn't even bat an eyelash; he looks entirely too comfortable, as if he has guns pointed at him regularly (he probably has). He makes a tiny _stay_ motion with his hand in Dembe's direction who's wiping at the blood on his chin and already has a second gun in his hand. Liz supposes she should be grateful. Without the element of surprise, she wouldn't have stood much of a chance.

Gratitude is not what she's feeling, though, at the moment. Every positive emotion seems like a far away memory.

 

'You are going to tell me everything, right now, or I'll shoot you in the head and walk out. I don't care how many people you can save by giving us your little numbers. I am done with your half-lies and almost-truths; I am done running after you like a dog. I'm not going to let you use me. You tell me the truth, _now_ ,' she says. She is proud of the way her voice doesn't waver.

 

.

 

His lungs are burning.

 

All he wants to do is fall down into the soft snow, and breathe. He wants to pretend none of this is real. But Raymond Reddington has always known that wanting something bad enough won't make it happen, won't make it true. Such is the nature of life, that it affects us and changes us, but that we, in return, can never change life.

 

The light on the front porch paints the snow a soft beige color and despite his panic and fear, a familiar feeling of _home_ seeps through his bones, slowing his steps for just a moment so that he can appreciate what he's about to lose.

 

Even before he pushes open the door, he can hear his daughter's delighted squealing and his wife's voice, singing along with the song which is wafting through the house like the smell of freshly baked cookies. He loves it when she sings; her voice is like she is, soft and warm and honest.

 

He doesn't think he'd ever be the same, without her voice.

 

.

 

'Where would you like me to start?' he asks. His fingers move on his knee, like he is tapping out the rhythm to a song that is playing only in his head.

 

'At the beginning,' she grinds out and tightens her hold on the gun.

 

'There is always more than one beginning, Lizzy. Every character has their own story.'

 

'I'm not a character, I'm not a pawn. I'm a human being and I am fed up with your philosophical babble; I failed my philosophy course in university.'

 

'Lizzy – '

 

'No, no. You don't deserve to call me that.'

 

But hearing her nickname from his lips is like a tiny puncture in her armor. She can feel herself deflating, the anger flowing out of her. She wants to hold on to it, because anger is useful, anger will make sure she doesn't fall for him again, like she has so many times before. She wants to clutch the anger to herself and let it burn her.

 

But she breathes out and it's all gone and all that she has left is a gun at his head and pain and the million unanswered questions that keep ricocheting off the inside of her skull.

 

'Give me something, that's not meant to make me run after you like I ran after Tom.'

 

She falters.

 

'I just want to believe in you,' Liz admits and feels like crying.

 

.

 

_I know you can do it, Daddy_ she says. Her pigtails swing back and forth as she nods her head. _I believe in you_.

 

_Well, then_ he says and carefully pulls out another Jenga piece.

 

Slowly, the tower leans to the side and crumbles.

 


	4. homage to the suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when the rain hits too hard/ when the battles that you fight just leave you scarred/ when you’re tired to the bone/ and you’ve got no strength to move on/ here's to you

.

 

Dangerous men are easy to spot: They're the ones who really look at you and _see you_.

 

When she meets him for the first time, every single instinct tells her to turn around and leave while she still can.

 

She comes from a family of soldiers. Her father and her brother are navy; her boyfriend is military. And this guy is glaringly obvious neither, with his too large leather jacket and his shock of shaggy dark hair. He grins at her across the room. Confident and arrogant and almost like a predator who's just spotted his next meal.

 

Oh, her instincts tell her to get out, to get Sam and leave, but she stays and stares back. She's not a soldier, but every now and then she likes to walk into a hail of bullets and see if she can make it through.

 

 

They meet in secret, at first. Not for the thrill of secrecy, but because she is not sure if she is willing to lose what she has and because she is sure that if her brother found out, he would kill Caleb. Caleb with the smooth voice and the rough hands. She feels like these hands could be her end.

 

 

She's in too deep, she realizes, when she breaks up with Sam and runs away with Caleb, like she is sixteen and in love. But she doesn't hear his smooth voice anymore, or see his tiny smile; she only feels his rough hands and his biting remarks. Some of the bullets have already grazed her; one or two have been aimed more accurately.

 

 

She walks into bullet hails to see if she can make it out alive; if she gets hit, she keeps going. She knows, now, too late, that she should never have trusted his eyes, or his voice. But running, now, would mean defeat. She comes from a family of soldiers. She can't admit defeat.

 

 

Their fights are broken up either by their daughter, or by him storming out. She prefers the second one, because she can feel herself flinch involuntarily whenever he moves his hands while shouting at her. It's bad when he's shouting; he doesn't need to shout. He can make his voice and eyes hard as steel and it's like they cut her open. But when he shouts … well, she was the one who walked into the hail.

 

 

She sees her daughter grow up. And with age comes slow understanding: That her parents aren't supposed to hit each other, aren't supposed to have conversations only in raised voices, meaning to do harm with words.

She sees her daughter grow up in the corner behind the couch and under the table and in her bed where she hides.

 

 

With shaking hands, she dials the only number she can remember and waits. The dial tone sounds like the screeching of a raptor.

 

_Please, pick up_ she whispers. She needs him to pick up and make it better.

 

Like he has when she fell off the swings and he carried her into the house. Like he did when she was fifteen and had snuck out of the house at night and then got drunk and lost her keys and he saw her from his window, where he had been waiting for her half the night.

 

_Yes?_

 

He sounds tired, but it's him and she feels like she's about to faint as all the tension leaves her body.

 

_It's me._ She doesn't know what else to say.

 

.

 

He sees his father put on his uniform and knows that is what he wants, too: To protect people; to keep what he loves safe.

 

But here he is, standing in his own doorway, panting, the sweat running down his back and he is scared, so scared, because he might lose what he loves and it will have been his fault.

 

_Ray?_ His wife turns to look at him, her eyes big, and hurries over, pressing her hands to his face. _What's wrong, love?_

 

_I'm sorry, I'm so sorry._ It's all he can manage to get out between gasping for air and holding the tears back (just barely).

 

.

 

Caleb's there, as soon as she hangs up and he immediately knows. His face goes blank, blanker than she has ever seen it and she is glad that her daughter is in her room.

 

_No one steals from me and gets away with it_ he says, his voice like icy rain on her skin.

 

She never sees it coming, the heavy whiskey bottle. It meets her head with a barely audible _thump_ and she crumbles to the floor like a broken, discarded doll.

 

 

Everything is fire when she wakes up again.

 

.

 

_Go back home_ they tell him, looking at him like they pity him. _Be with your family and forget about all of this_.

 

The uniform he is wearing feels too tight, all of a sudden. A corset he tightened around himself and can't get free of now.

 

_It's not right._

 

_Sometimes horrible decisions have to be made in order to keep the people of this country save_ they tell him, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world.  _Luckily, you don't have to make such a decision. Go home._

 

He imagines his daughter playing in the garden, her curls bouncing around her head like a halo and her laughter ringing out across the grass to where he is sitting on the patio, watching her with fondness in his eyes,

He imagines his wife, lying in bed next to him, the morning light of the sun painting golden streaks across her skin; he never gets tired of looking at her.

 

His father once told him  _ A soldier without honor is just a mercenary, Raymond. A soldier follows orders, but his conscience isn't for sale. _

 

_It isn't right_ he thinks and sees his family smile at him.

 

.

 

_Just one second_ she tells herself, but already she can feel the second stretch to two and then to three.

 

She looks down at her daughter's face. She has never loved anyone more; not her family, not Caleb, not even herself.

 

She moving too slow, she knows it. The fire is eating away at everything flammable and the air is thick with gray smoke.

 

The couch is there, suddenly and she almost falls.

 

_Almost. Almost_ she thinks and then her hands hit the wall and she can feel the smooth glass of the window under her fingertips. By now, it's colored black like everything else.

 

Her hands are shaking so badly she can't get the window open. There is light dancing at the edges of her vision.

 

She forgets where she is and why she's about to die. All she knows is that she needs to protect her daughter, so she drives her elbow into the glass, again and again until she feels it splinter. A few broken pieces must have found their way into her arm, but there's no pain. She's glad for it, this little reprieve.

 

She lifts her daughter out of the window, the sun outside almost as bright as the fire behind her. Her daughter's hand gets caught on the window frame and she cuts herself (it's going to leave a scar, there; a constant reminder that life and death are separated only by a paper-thin breath of air).

 

_Go, Lizzy_ she whispers through parched lips.

 

The girl stumbles outside to the sound of sirens, while her mother dies to the sound of her own crying.

 

.

 

His wive and daughter are pale and quiet on the backseat. He has told them just as much as was necessary to get them into the car.

 

They're in his wife's car. A light blue thing which he hates and she loves. She likes to say it has character. He has never cared about a car less. He needs it to drive and he needs it to drive fast.

 

He keeps looking into the rear mirror, expecting lights to appear in the darkness behind them, chasing them down like they threatened they would.

 

He keeps looking back and doesn't see the truck until it is too late. It hits the car in a head-on collision.

 

His wife and daughter die to the sound of falling snow and his ragged breaths.

 

.

 

'I found you hiding under a bush on the playground across the street. I picked you up and took you away from there.' His voice hasn't wavered once, but now it's rough. 'For some reason you trusted me.'

 

It's like a silent plea and it's too much and not enough and all she has ever wished for. Her past, summed up in ten minutes and spread out in front of her. Liz rubs her scar with her free hand absentmindedly; she doesn't remember the pain, but hearing about how she got it makes her ache. A hollow pain that sits in her chest like a stone.

 

She has tried to remember her childhood so many times. Sometimes she wakes up with the taste of ash on her tongue, or the memory of crayon pictures and someone telling her stories about brave heroes in a soft voice.

 

'I think there was an old family picture she used to show me. Like a Christmas card or something?'

 

Liz caught herself a few times, when she was younger, mixing up reality and her made-up stories about a family she didn't know. This she's sure about.

 

_You come from a family of soldiers, Lizzy. Never forget that_.

 

'The one with the Santa hats?' Red asks softly, carefully.

 

'Yes.'

 

'Our Christmas tree caught on fire and we all got drunk on eggnog,' he says. 'It was a wonderful Christmas.'

 

_._

 

_It's not fair_ , Liz wants to say, but that would make her sound like the little girl she can't be anymore. Besides, she doesn't know what she would mean. That she is already forgiving him, or that this is not how their lives were supposed to be? She wanted to be one of the good guys, the superheroes and brave people. Now she's not sure what that means anymore, because here she is, holding a gun to the head of a man who's just as broken as she is.

 

The gun seems to weight her down. She looks at it and doesn't remember what she wanted to do with it.

 

'So you're my uncle,' she finally says. She doesn't know what else to say. This is not the place for apologies or sympathy. She takes the gun down and has it dismantled with a few practiced moves. Her arm tingles.

 

'Disappointed?' Red asks. He shifts on the couch, some of the tension leaking from his body.

 

Liz shakes her head.

 

'I'm glad you're not my father,' she admits.

 

'Me, too,' Red gives back. There's a tiny smile playing at the edge of his lips, barely there. He looks at her for a moment, just taking her in. 'When all of this is over, I'm going to take you to dinner in Paris, for all the birthdays I have missed.'

 

'You've taken me out to dinner plenty of times, Red.'

 

His smile is bigger this time.

 

'This will be a dinner without FBI company.'

 

.

 

Red hands her a blanket and she sits down next to him on the couch, pulls her knees up to her chest and leans against his shoulder.

 

She's a child and all she wants is to be loved and not be alone; she is twenty-nine and she doesn't feel alone here. If she's lucky, she might even be loved. She feels Red's warmth through the thin material of his shirt and knows that if this is another elaborate lie, she will be left with nothing. But she already has nothing and she has gained something, tonight; at least for now.

 

The gun lies on the table in pieces, forgotten and unneeded.

 

.

 

'I don't suppose you can promise to never lie to me again?' she asks.

 

'No,' Red replies truthfully. 'Although, and I might run the risk of inciting your wrath again, I have never lied to you.'

 

'Stop it with the semantics, or I'll start calling you _uncle Ray_.'

 

She thinks he might have whispered _I'd like that_.

 

.

 

'Why didn't I grow up with you?'

 

'I wanted to protect you, which is why I had left everyone but Sam in the belief that you were dead,' Red says. 'I was always hoping you would live with us when you were a little older.'

 

He looks away, but it's a moment too late, because she has already seen the pain in his eyes.

 

.

 

'I never meant to keep this from you,' Red says. 'It's part of your life just like it's part of mine.'

 

'It hurts, I get it,' she says and then, because she just can't help it, because somewhere she is still that little abandoned girl, 'It's not like it's the only thing you've ever kept from me.'

 

.

 

She asks about her father, eventually, after pushing the thought around in her head like a chewing gum.

 

'Is he still alive? My – father?' she asks.

 

To call that faceless man her father feels wrong. She buried her father. But she doesn't want to call him _the man who killed my mother_ , either. That makes her think of _what if_ s and _could have been_ s. Of all the things she might have experienced, if her mother had survived, if her father weren't the monster Sam had always tried to protect her from.

 

'Yes.'

 

Liz had been hoping for a _No_. Nice and easy, hurting just the tiniest bit, in the same way really good Scotch burns your throat.

 

'Is he part of this?' Liz makes a vague gesture.

 

'Yes.'

 

It's another Pandora's box she will have to open eventually, but not now. Liz knows the past will be able to wait for her just a little longer.

 

'Are you going to kill him?'

 

Red looks down at her and doesn't answer.

 

'It's not going to hurt my feelings if you say _Yes_.'

 

He chuckles; Liz can feel the slight vibration of it in her bones. She grins into his shirt. A distant part of her brain remarks that smiling while talking about killing people is either a sign of madness, lack of sleep or, most likely, both.

 

She thinks it over. She's related to Raymond Reddington, it's most definitely both.

 

'In that case, yes,' Red answers. 'If I get the chance, I will kill them all.'

 

.

 

'You could leave, if you wanted,' he offers. 'Sixty seconds and you're gone.'

 

Liz opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again. She goes through all the possible things she could say, all the declarations she could make.

 

Finally she says: 'No. I'm staying.'

 

She takes his hand instead of adding _with you_. She comes from a line of soldiers, she will fight for her family. And for herself.

 

.

 

'Why did we go to that party?' Liz asks. She hopes they didn't get themselves almost blown to pieces for nothing.

 

'Kassim had information on the people I'm after,' Red say. After a second he corrects himself: 'Information on the people we're after. We got that information in exchange for a little help with his endeavor. You were never in danger.'

 

'Was the information worth it?'

 

'Yes.'

 

Liz nods.

 

'Good.'

 

.

 

'What are we going to do?' she asks, just as the sun climbs up over the tops of the skyscrapers.

 

Red looks down at their still entwined hands.

 

'We'll have some of the excellent breakfast they serve here and then we'll take them down, one by one, no matter how long it takes.'

 

'Okay.'

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued.


End file.
